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9 Weddings That Ended in Tragedy

The Brazilian bride who died in a helicopter crash on the way to her wedding

In December 2016, a Brazilian bride's surprise entrance to her wedding went tragically wrong when the helicopter she was in crashed minutes before she was due to tie the knot. Rosemeire Silva Nascimento, who was wearing her wedding dress and veil, died instantly along with three others.

The 32-year-old nurse planned to amaze her fiancé, Udirley Narques Damasceno, 34, and their 300 guests with a stunning entrance by flying into the Recanto Beija-Flor venue in Sao Lourenco da Serra, a wealthy suburb of Sao Paulo, in a chopper. The groom was in a state of shock at the altar as he was told his bride had died.

In addition to Rosemeire, the other victims included her brother, Silvano Nascimento da Silva, who had been “very excited about the plan," the wedding photographer, Nayla Cristina Neves Lousada, who was six months pregnant, and Peterson Pinheiro, the pilot.

2
The mother of the bride who was killed when a tree fell on the wedding party

A US wedding turned deadly in December 2016 after a eucalyptus tree in a Southern California park collapsed on the bridal party posing for photos. A woman believed to be the mother of the bride was killed, and five people were injured. Witness Gilbert Duran was attending a girl's 15th birthday party in the park when the tree fell. Moments before the tree toppled, he and some friends had been taking pictures underneath it, but moved for better light.

3
The 20 wedding guests who died after the dance floor collapsed

At least 20 people were killed and hundreds injured at a wedding party in Jerusalem in 2001 after the dance floor collapsed. Guests were left clinging to the walls of the Versailles wedding hall when the third floor suddenly gave way and crashed through two stores below.

There were nearly 700 guests in the building, which was in the industrial Talpiot area of Jerusalem. 23 people fell to their deaths through two stories, including the groom's 80-year-old grandfather and his three-year-old second cousin, the youngest victim. Another 380 were injured, including the bride, who suffered severe pelvic injuries.

4
The father of the bride who died moments after dancing with his daughter at her wedding

A father dropped dead of a heart attack just moments after finishing the first dance with his daughter at her wedding. Tim Buchanan, 54, was at Michele Howard's nuptials in Costa Rica when the tragedy happened, along with his wife and her mother Jeni.

5
The 51 wedding guests who where killed by a suicide bomber

This is the haunting image of a mass grave dug for some of the 51 guests who were killed while dancing at a wedding in Gaziantep, Turkey. The killer, who wore an explosive belt, was between12-14 years old. It was Turkey's deadliest bombing of 2016.

12 people were buried the day after the attack, but other funerals had to wait because many of the victims were blown to pieces and DNA was the only way to identify them.

6
The father who died in plane crash while flying over his daughter's wedding reception

Not all surprises go as planned. In July 2015, a day of celebration quickly turned tragic when an Alaskan man, performing a surprise flyover at his daughter's wedding reception, died when his plane crashed.

Michael Zagula, 54, had performed the ceremony earlier at his daughter's wedding to a man he is said to have treated like a son.
About half the town of Trapper Creek, Alaska, some 120 miles north of Anchorage, was at the reception. Zagula posed for photographs with the happy couple at the cake cutting before slipping away.

"About 20 minutes later his plane was flying over, and he loved to fly, so he wanted to do something special for the kids," Klondike Hughes, a friend of Zagula's, said. Zagula flew over the party, but as he was returning, he clipped some trees and lost control of the aircraft. Many of the guests either witnessed or heard the crash.

7
The bride who drowned during her wedding photo shoot

In 2012, a woman taking part in a "trash the dress" wedding photo shoot drowned after being pulled underwater by the weight of her wedding gown while snapping pictures in a river near Dorwin Falls in Quebec.

Photographer Louis Pagakis said 30-year-old Maria Pantazopoulos entered the Ouareau River in her wedding dress so she could have her picture taken in the style of wedding photography meant to symbolize that permanence of the marriage. But the dress quickly became saturated, and the weight of it was simply too much for the 100-pound Pantazopoulos, who began to sink to the bottom. The photographer and a witness tried to save her but were unsuccessful. A scuba diver later found Pantzopoulos' body at the bottom of a nearby stagnant pool of water.

8
The women who died after the wedding limo caught fire

In 2013, nine women in a limo, including the bride-to-be, were caught in a tragic fire that started burning just as the car was crossing the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge near San Francisco. Five of the women were burnt alive including Felomina Geronga, Jennifer Balon, 39, of Dublin; Michelle Estrera, 35, of Fresno; Anna Alcantara, 46, of San Lorenzo; and bride Neriza Fojas, 31, of Monterey. They were headed to a party in Foster City to celebrate Fojas' nuptials when the blaze started.

9
A woman was killed and four people were injured by rogue bullets during a wedding celebration

Celebratory gunfire during a wedding ceremony in India went horribly wrong when one guest was killed, and four others were injured. The dramatic incident took place at Savitiri Marriage Hall, in Karnal district, Haryana, northern India, in November 2016.

Wedding guests started firing shots into the air soon after the ceremony to celebrate, which is a tradition. The party, however, soon turned tragic when guest Sunita, 48, was accidentally shot in the chest and died later in hospital. Four other guests were injured, including an 11-year-old girl, and they were all rushed to a nearby hospital in a critical condition.